Cycling Facilities - Edinburgh

by Alastair Webb

Older readers (& OK, that's most of us) will remember the heady days when Meadowbank was up & running, we could (reasonably easily) use Ingliston for closed road races and training, and our 10m TTs could run at Kirky (just inside the city boundary).

Nowadays none of these remain available to us. Though both FCP and WLCC aren't that far away, there's nowhere in the city for closed road training, our TTs are in East Lothian and the Chris Hoy is fab (but not that handy at rush hour). Which all feels a bit ironic with the Grand Depart next July.

We spotted that there's a council officer responsible for cycling developments at Hunters Hall (by the Jack Kane centre), so Phil & I met him for a catch-up.

He outlined how the money set-aside when Meadowbank for cycling facilities has not been used. Initially the plan was to build a velodrome @ Hunters Hall (outdoors, all-weather, floodlit), but that turned out to be too expensive. Next plan (for which there is planning permission) was to build a competition level BMX track -- this has been delayed by planning issues linked to 'common good' and a new primary school.

We suggested that if they could add in a simple tarmac track around the BMX circuit, and behind the security fences, then that'd at least give us somewhere were we can do basic road cycle coaching in a safe environment, and he seemed quite positive and is away to look at adding that in.

But if folk can think of any other new development, or location, in Edinburgh where some form of road circuit could be built, please let me know. It'd be great if it were FCP standard, but something to let us run road coaching sessions on tarmac (if not races) would be a big step forwards.

Equally, if anybody is close friends with councillors on the Culture & Communities committee, please shout. We suspect some lobbying will be required to help us (eg) get an announcement of 'shovels in ground' to coincide with the Grand Depart.